Working Together to Help Those Stranded by Hunger Disaster

I have
traveled the country and other parts of the world observing, researching and
addressing hunger and poverty for the past 20 years.

Much of
what I have learned about addressing hunger and poverty is similar to what I
learned by working in disaster response.

The
problem is often overwhelming, and we need to find a way to work together in a
coordinated response to address these issues that have been around for thousands
of years.

Years
after Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav and Ike, while living and working in San
Antonio, I was offered the opportunity to put these ideas to the test when I
was asked by Texas Baptists to start an organization focused specifically on
coordinating a collective response to hunger, the Texas Hunger Initiative.

The
premise was that hunger and poverty are too large and too complex to address
alone. We would all need to work together in a coordinated capacity if we
wanted to make a dent in them, much less end them.

We also
knew we had a cultural problem. Our nation tends toward blaming the hungry and poor
for their plight rather than walking alongside them to find solutions.

Blaming
the poor for their poverty only adds insult to injury and is largely an
inaccurate diagnosis.

We also
had a spiritual problem. Jesus spoke frequently about loving our neighbor in
practical and tangible ways, such as providing food for the hungry.

Hunger in
Texas, however, was more prevalent than in almost any other state in the nation
or in any developed country around the world.

We needed
a stronger understanding of our collective call to love God and our neighbor,
and we needed to move with a sense of urgency, as I would soon learn.

As I was
transitioning into this new position, I was told I needed to meet Pastor Dan
Trevino because his congregation was providing food for the hungry.

Dan’s
congregation was on the south side of San Antonio, a sister neighborhood to the
west side, where I was living.

Dan spoke
to me about his congregation’s ministries in the community. They had a charter school
that used the church’s education building, a food pantry, a community garden,
and literacy and employment classes.

If you
can think of an idea for ministry, Dan and his church were probably doing it.

As we
talked and toured the church, Dan told me about a formative experience. He said
he and his sons went to the church one Saturday morning before dawn to make
breakfast tacos for the elders in the congregation.

When they
pulled into the church parking lot, the headlights of his van revealed children
in the church’s dumpster. He and his sons were startled, and so were the
children in the dumpster.

The kids
tried to get out of the dumpster and run away, but Dan was able to get to them
and calm their fears.

He
invited them into the church’s kitchen and made them breakfast tacos before the
elders arrived. Once they were full, he began to ask them why they were in the
dumpster.

Slowly,
the boys began to open up and told him that they did not have any food in the
house, so they had snuck out while it was still dark to rummage through the
dumpster to see if they could find something to eat.

I was
stunned. Dan’s church wasn’t far from the Riverwalk and all that we enjoy
visiting in San Antonio.

Yet there
were children in his community so impoverished that they were rummaging through
a dumpster to find food.

This was
a story I expected to hear about the developing world, but downtown San
Antonio?

My shock
led to dismay. How could our nation passively let children experience such
extreme circumstances? How could the church?

Gandhi
called poverty the harshest form of violence. I believe hunger is the harshest
form of poverty.

Hunger is
debilitating. It stimulates physical pain, anger, lethargy and depression. It will
keep you up at night and ironically cause drowsiness during the day.

I can
only imagine the shame and humiliation parents experience when their children
miss meals.

One of
our primary responsibilities is to provide a stable household for our families.
We want to make sure they have food, a consistent place to sleep and a loving
environment.

If we
were unable to provide them with three meals a day and a place to sleep, we
would probably feel inadequate and ashamed.

These
dumpster-diving kids were no different than the hurricane survivors on the
bridge: They had been stranded by tragedy.

Travel to
any urban or rural impoverished community, and you will find similar stories
everywhere.

Today in
the United States, over 40 million Americans are food insecure (or at risk of
hunger).

According
to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this means that, at times during the
year, these individuals live in households that are uncertain of having or are
unable to acquire enough food to meet the needs of all their family members
because they have insufficient money or other resources for food.

Nearly
one out of six children in the U.S. lives in a food-insecure household. That
number is one out of two in south Texas.

Furthermore,
economic inequality is the worst it has been in modern American history.

A person
working a full-time job and getting paid minimum wage earns less than the
federal poverty line, and the poverty line is an inaccurate underrepresentation
of true poverty.

Jeremy K. Everett (MDiv, Baylor University) is the founder and executive director of the Texas Hunger Initiative, an organization that partners with the United States Department of Agriculture, Texas state agencies, the corporate sector, and thousands of faith- and community-based organizations to develop and implement strategies to alleviate hunger through policy, education, research, and community organizing.